well, I can't counter it because I don't think they do know how it works. the theory is shallow yet the outputs of, say, an LLM are of remarkably high quality in an area (language) that is impossibly baroque. the lack of theory and fundamental understanding presents a huge problem for them because it means "improvements" can only come about by throwing money and conventional engineering at their systems. this is what I've heard from people in the field for at least ten years.

to me that also means it isn't something that needs to be countered. it's something the context of which needs to be explained. it's bad for the ai industry that they don't know what they're doing

EDIT: also, when i say the outputs are of high quality, what i mean is that they produce coherent and correct prose. im not suggesting anything about the utility of the outputs